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HEXI CORRIDOR, GANSU PROVINCE - Sandstorms frequently sweep the Hexi Corridor, a desert expanse stretching 1,600 kilometers (km) across northern Gansu Province.

Low annual rainfall and high evaporation rates make this one of the driest places on earth.

But the inhospitable region is also home to fertile oases fed by groundwater from the melting snow of the Qilian mountains in the south. Marco Polo traveled through these oasis towns of the Silk Road on his way to the Mongol capital of Zhongdu. The groundwater sustained communities of farmers and herders for centuries.

Today, Gansu Province - one of the poorest in the PRC - is threatened by an encroaching desert and overexploitation of limited water resources.

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In a bleak area between the Badanjilin and Tenggeli deserts, dozens of farmers are placing bundles of straw in the fragile terrain as small barriers against windblown sand.

Farmer Li Zhao Luo wields a plow pulled by donkeys to make a furrow for the straw.

"We have terrible sandstorms coming over this ridge that damage our crops and homes," he says, pausing from his work. "These straw barriers and the trees we will plant beside them next year will reduce their impact."

A few kilometers away, wheat farmer Zhu Kang Shou stops his tractor to discuss the severe water shortages. "We used to get water from a nearby reservoir several times a year, but now we receive it only once a year," he says. "We are digging tube wells to access more groundwater to maintain production, but the costs are more, and we are worried about the falling water table."

The desert, which already occupies more than 30% of Gansu, is expanding. An ever-growing population is converting land for agriculture, destroying trees and other natural vegetation, overusing groundwater, and building reservoirs to supply water for towns and irrigated agriculture.

Compounding the problems are overgrazing, the use of wood as domestic fuel, and cultivation of crops that consume a lot of water. Water levels in the area have dropped from 8 to 12 meters below ground level in the 1950s to as much as 100 meters now.

To help arrest the trend, ADB is providing a technical assistance grant of US$610,000 to develop an integrated approach to water resources management that controls and reduces desert encroachment. If successful, it could be replicated elsewhere in the PRC, where soil erosion and desertification plague nearly 30% of the rural areas.

Leading the province's fight against desertification is the Gansu Desert Control Research Institute - GDCRI, based in Wuwei Prefecture. The institute applies research, maintains demonstration areas, and conducts training in techniques for sand stabilization.

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Standing by the Hong Yashan Reservoir on the Shiyang River, the main water source of the Wuwei-Minqin oasis area, GDCRI's Deputy Director Zhao Ming explains the drastic fall in water levels. "Our supply dropped from 500 million cubic meters of water a year to 100 million."

He cites the reasons: more water is being drawn for irrigation, evaporation from crops is higher than from natural vegetation, and reservoir capacity is being lost due to windblown sand.

"Farmers are getting less irrigation water, and they compensate by digging wells to access groundwater," Mr. Zhao adds. "This is upsetting the ecology and reducing the vegetative cover."

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Despite the enormity of the challenges, Liu Cong, Director of Gansu Province Forestry Department, is optimistic they can be addressed. "We are increasing our water supply from the Yellow River, building sand barriers, and encouraging farmers to grow crops that consume less water," he says.

Officials at GDCRI are tackling the problem from both the supply and demand sides.

Although tens of thousands of hectares of farmland have been lost to drifting sand, the authorities are fighting back through reforestation.

At one "forest" of soso trees, Director of the Minqin Forestry Bureau He Chenren says, "We planted 36,000 mu of these trees 20 years ago and they effectively stabilized the sand and reduced the impact of sandstorms on the nearby fields and villages." (15 mu = 1 hectare)

GDCRI hopes for faster results by focusing on the demand side. The arid climate favors a range of crops, so officials are encouraging farmers to switch to orchards and vineyards, which consume far less water than wheat or corn if appropriate irrigation methods are used.

Farmers can also find it more profitable. At one vineyard, farmer Wu Jinrong says his income improved significantly after switching to grapes. "I used to grow wheat and corn but, because of the falling water supply, yields and income declined," he says. "I started growing grapes 2 years ago and had my first crop this year. I made 300 yuan per mu-much more than I made with wheat."

GDCRI is helping slow the desert's intrusions on some fronts. But the underlying challenge is to ensure the sustainable use of the declining groundwater.

"We need to look at the challenge in an integrated way, and that means scaling back consumption in a range of activities so that extraction does not exceed the rate of groundwater recharge," notes ADB's Principal Project Specialist Ian Fox, who helped set up the technical assistance.

"Some highly water-consuming crops should not be grown here, irrigation techniques should be improved, and some industries may need to be relocated to other areas."

Degraded Lands a Major Cause of Poverty

Nearly 30% of the PRC's land is degraded, especially in the north, northeast and northwest, according to an ADB report. More than 400 million people, of which the poorest 40 million subsists on the desert fringes, are affected. Land degradation is a major cause of rural poverty and prevents people from progressing beyond the subsistence level. Through research programs begun in the 1950's, the PRC has developed and successfully demonstrated over large areas various techniques of soil stabilization and revegetation. In Gansu Province, which is more than one-third desert, there are several key agencies tackling the problem. The Gansu Desert Control Research Institute, based in Wuwei Prefecture, conducts applied research, maintains demonstration areas, and conducts training in techniques for sand stabilization and controlling the spread of deserts. The Gansu Desert Monitoring Center works on ecological planning of forest resources and desert-contol programs. The Desert Control Office of the Gansu Provincial Department of Forestry supports these efforts.

In the capital of Lanzhou, the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences does research on land degradation, including the relationship between the desertification rate and capture of surface water and groundwater resources. The provincial government has come to realize that the technical approaches researched by these institutions are insufficient on their own to reverse the deteriorating trend in fragile environments. Changes are needed in the way communities use natural resources. These efforts must be rooted in sound policies and strategies aimed at relieving the pressure on the resource base to give the techniques of soil stabilization and revegetation a better chance of success. The participation of local communities in these activities and decisions is essential, especially in view of the need to scale back production targets for agriculture and livestock, relocate certain "water-thirsty" agricultural activities and industries to other parts of the country, and reserve a greater amount of available water resources for environmental needs.

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